"small hook," especially one fixed on a rope and thrown for seizing and holding, late 14c., grapenel, from an assumed Anglo-French diminutive of grapon, from Old French grapil, grapin "hook," diminutive of grape "hook" (see grape). Earlier form was grapel (compare grapple (n.)).
Entries linking to grapnel
grape n.
mid-13c., "a grape, a berry of the vine," also collective singular, from Old French grape "bunch of grapes, grape" (12c.), probably a back-formation from graper "steal; grasp; catch with a hook; pick (grapes)," from a Frankish or other Germanic word, from Proto-Germanic *krappon "hook," from a group of Germanic words meaning "bent, crooked, hooked" (cognates: Middle Dutch crappe, Old High German krapfo "hook;" also see cramp (n.2)). The original notion thus perhaps was "vine hook for grape-picking." The vine is not native to England. The word replaced Old English winberige "wine berry." Spanish grapa, Italian grappa also are from Germanic.
grapple n.
"iron hook for fastening one thing to another," late 13c., from Old French grapil "hook" (see grapnel).
